Indolate
by ebonbird
Summary: After Ten Blue & L'Azurely, Crichton and Zhaan continued with their 'thing'. Follows 'L'Azurely'.


John Crichton lay beside Zhaan. She slept with her back to him. Her arm against her side, her hand grazing the considerable rise of her hip.

He stared at the expanse of her back. He had seen it before and more, Zhaan didn't have any modesty. Or she was so modest that nakedness was no big thing.

Her back was bare because she was naked.

He was naked too, but he wasn't thinking of that. He was focusing on her skin. Had been for, for a long time. He squeezed his eyes shut for a few breaths. Opened them. Her skin was still blue.

How often had he examined her skin? Rubbed it himself? Licked it? It stayed blue. And she didn't flush in exertion or embarrassment or anything like that. But her skin was warm to the touch... a lot like his in feel, but he could rub her wrong. There were places on her body that got negative reactions out of her, no matter how gentle he was, and it was a shame, 'cause on the girls back home those were some of his favorite places to linger.

She was so blue.

The taste of her hollows reminded him of baker's chocolate. Which, when he was a kid, was great 'cause he'd take chocolate however he could eat it. And the bitter nausea that came with that gustatory reminder was like the first time he was in zero G.

Sick to his stomach but loving every minute of it. Until the nausea was part of the rush.

The first time he'd seen her bare naked had been on Sykar, D'argo getting busy in the room next door, him sitting on the pull-out pallet on the floor, rubbing his temples and processing everything.

D'Argo trying to kill him. D'Argo calling him brother. The planet of the red-skinned, white eyed humanoids lead by a ghost with red eyes and braids that looked a lot like the Borg Queen. (What was her name? Velmi? Vala? Volmae!) Him being too far away from Earth to get back, probably, and the live action television series that was his life.

Zhaan had asked him a question, he didn't know what, and he never got to answering it, because he lost his train of thought when he caught the drop of her gown to the ground out of the corner of his eye.

She knelt in front of him, blue tits level with his eyes, and he'd dragged his hands to his face because it was crazy, she was crazy, and her freckles, or scales, or whatever, were blue, and he was completely unprepared for her nipples and the patterning of the skin over her breastbone and the sides of her breasts, and she had sidies, but maybe not, because she still had her overshift on and he didn't really couldn't tell and she'd said, "Your head, does it pain you?"

Or something easily Zhaan-like, and she'd raised her hands and held them at either side of his head and offered to ease his pain.

Maybe she didn't have any modesty. Maybe she was so modest she didn't have any shame.

Quietly, so as not to wake her, John laughed in his throat.

He'd bounced his back on the bed, crawled away from her, and without even kicking off his boots, turned on his side and pretended to go sleep. Maybe she'd done something to him because the next time he'd opened his eyes it was morning, but he felt a hell of a lot better than he did the night before.

When he woke up she had her hand on his dick, but was otherwise asleep. Unless she'd been doing like him.

He was lying next to an alien woman. His mouth filled with the taste of her. His thoughts tinted by hers. His unmentionables slick from hers, his shoulders knotless, his lower back kinking, his legs zenning with the bedding because he'd been wrung out lovingly and thoroughly by an 800 year old hedonist/anarchist.

He'd shared his mind with her.

She with him.

Not all of it, certainly, but there was a strange buzz around his thoughts. He was thinking super-clear, still, and was looking at Zhaan, and around the cell, with new eyes. He had some ideas about Farscape and peace-keeper tech.

He got out of bed and went to talk to Pilot. And Aeryn, maybe Aeryn could be of help, too.

At the door, he turned to look back at Zhaan, still curled on her side, one foot hooked behind her ankle. He grabbed the grill. Leaned into the hallway, smiled at her sleeping sweetness wrapped in orange-gold bedding and blissfully unaware of his departure.

He thought about pouncing on the pallet, waking her up so he could look into her eyes. Poke her in the places she welcomed his touch and nibble on her soft dry mouth. But they weren't like that, that free and easy, and he didn't know how she'd react. Maybe a pantak jab to the stomach or something equally alien.

He twisted his neck, gave it a good hard crack, and feeling that life had taken a turn for the better headed for Farscape.

He had an idea.

Something full of possibilities.

He hoped D'Argo didn't smell Zhaan on him because there was no way John could take a shower and miss out on what was perking in his mind.


End file.
